F2 tornado, Dieterich, Illinois, April 16, 2006

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. F3158 to 206 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. F5261 to 318 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

F2

Date

April 16, 2006

Touchdown

5:09 PM CDT (22:09 UTC)

Path length

4.0 miles (6.4 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Effingham County

Touchdown point

39.020, -88.430

Lift-off point

39.030, -88.370

Record number

394

A tornado touched down in a wooded area just southwest of the intersection of 700th Avenue and 2000th Street. It tracked east-northeast, and struck a farmstead on 2000th St., destroying a barn, 4 outbuildings and several grain bins. The tornado struck a homestead about 1 mile to the east of the farm, snapping off dozens of trees and causing minor roof damage to a well-built home. About a mile to the east of the home, the tornado struck two homesteads. Considerable tree damage was noted at this location, 3 outbuildings were destroyed, and an attached garage was destroyed when the overhead door failed and the side wall was blown out. Further east, on 2300th St. and about 1 mile north of 700th Ave, a well-built home had an attached garage destroyed, the front porch roof torn off, and two second story dormers torn off. A final farmstead was damaged near 800th Ave. North and the Effingham/Jasper County line. Two outbuildings on the farm were completely destroyed, and a small combine in one of the buildings was flipped into an adjacent pond. An antenna tower was blown over next to the house and the home sustained siding, roofing and window damage.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

8 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:01 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:20 UTC and running to 00:00 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:34 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 103 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:11 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2006 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.